


Between Grass And Hay

by workerBee



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (mild), Hayseed junkrat, M/M, horror themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/workerBee/pseuds/workerBee
Summary: Mako Rutledge might have bought a farm, but he does not intend to be doing any gardening. He is only here to lay low, forgive his past sins, and grow old in peace. He does not care for the barren field now in his possession, or the scarecrow he inherited with it.





	1. Tempest

Mako hadn't paid any attention to the scarecrow in the middle of the field, at first. It was there when he'd bought the old farmhouse; planted sturdily in the dirt, unmoving, probably rotten with time. The farm had been abandoned for a few years when he'd taken it over, and the old scarecrow was probably falling apart inside.

 

He didn't plan on actually using the field. Though he owned all the land, he was no farmer. He only wanted some place to stay, far from the buzz of the city and the heavy past that always tried to catch up to him. Here, he hoped to blend in, as much as a man as noticeable as he could hope to. The town was a few miles away from the village, and the nearest house from his was just on the horizon; a good 20-minute walk to even get to his neighbor. That was good. That was what he'd been looking for: tranquility. Peace, at last.

 

He'd taken his trusty bike with him, and he'd ride it into the village once or twice per week for groceries. The old lady from the convenience store always liked to talk to him; apart from her, he had little human contact, if any at all. He was fine with it. With him, he had his pig, who he'd uncreatively baptized “Hog”, and piles of books that he'd long wanted to read but never had the time for. That was enough. The only thing Mako aspired to now was a normal life; a place to peacefully grow old, like any regular man would.

 

The farm house was old, but he'd repaired it, mostly on his own, with some help from local professionals. It still got cold in the winter; but with a fire in the fireplace and a blanket thrown over his lap, he could sit in his rocking chair and warm up just fine. Just behind the farmhouse, the woods started, and it made for pleasant walks when spring came; a ways into the forest was a river, which he couldn't cross, but if he followed it upstream for a dozen of minutes he'd find rocks above water that he could cross on. He never tried; he was too old to be balancing on rocks to try and explore deeper parts of the forest.

 

With those much more pleasant places to visit, the large field next to the house, where the scarecrow stood, didn't really catch his interest. Nothing grew there; that was why he'd gotten the farm so cheap. The land was large, but sterile. The earth was barren of even weeds, and though he'd made a half-hearted attempt at planting tomatoes there, it seemed it would remain so. Once, he imagined, the place must have been fertile; how else could he explain the man-sized scarecrow? It wasn't a piss-poor job, either. He'd never gotten close enough to touch it, but the thing seemed pretty well-done. The proportions were mostly right, though not perfect enough that it could really be mistaken for a man. It had a creepy head made of hay, with black holes for eyes, and a stitched up mouth. It wore a flannel shirt and some old, ratty pants, and though one of its arms was gone, the arm of its shirt empty at the elbow, and one of its legs was ripped off, with a long stick stuffed into its pants instead of hay, it still would have done a fine job if it had been of any use.

 

One might have gotten sentimental about this lone, old, ripped up scarecrow standing alone in a sterile field, and thought to bring it back to the old barn. Mako wasn't such a man. Ever since he'd taken over the farm in the fall, he'd had to constantly work, first to make the house habitable, and then to try and repair some of the barn. Taking care of the scarecrow was work he didn't need, not to mention it was probably squirming with bugs and mold.

 

And so, on Mako's first summer on the farm, the scarecrow was still where he'd first found it, looking distantly at the house. It was a hot summer, a heavy one, and on that August night, Mako knew it would storm outside. He'd holed up inside comfortably, reading in his usual spot in the armchair, and he was ready for an early night. The sky had covered up ominously with dark clouds early in the evening, and as night started to fall and the wind started to blow hard, he closed his book, walked into his room, and settled into bed.

 

He'd barely started to drift off when he started to hear a loud creaking outside. The trees of the forest, he assumed, shaking with the wind. He listened to the sound as he rolled around and tried to sleep. It was rhythmic, and oddly loud, oddly close – too close to be the forest. It didn't come from the right direction, either – it came from the side of the house. From the barren field.

 

With a sudden intuition that something of interest was happening, he sat up, then stood, the floorboards whining with his weight, and he moved to the window.

 

It was dark outside; he squinted in the night to try and see the field. His eyes found the vague form of the scarecrow, shaking back and forth with the wind, and creaking loud and clear.

 

He groaned. The damn thing would probably break if he just left it out there – not to mention it would make it impossible to sleep for the time being. He opened his closet door and pulled out the old paint coveralls he had worn all spring while he was repainting the house. He put them on slowly, painstakingly, sighing as he zipper them up.

 

The stairs creaked as he descended into the foyer. It was almost pitch dark, so he moved slowly, his hands trailing the furniture to guide him to the front door.

 

The rain hit his face as soon as he opened it and he had to squint as he walked out. The cold wind tried to push him back as he took the direction of the field, beating his face; the weather was heavy. He missed his warm bed and the invitation of sleep. Still, he soldiered on, his boots soon sinking into the mud that the rain had made from the usually dry dirt of the field. Ahead, the scarecrow still swung back and forth, still creaked regularly. He could see its outline more clearly now. The head seemed to bob to the side with the wind, and Mako hurried his step, hoping he'd get there before the thing broke off completely.

 

“Damn thing”, he muttered as he trudged through the last few feet towards it. The scarecrow bobbed its head as if it heard him.

 

A sudden strike of lightning ripped through the night sky, and for just a second the field was painted white, in stark contrast, and he could see all the shadows and the shapes, and he could see the scarecrow, and in that second two bright, wide eyes met his through the hay that was its face. But it was only one second, and though his step faltered for a moment, he kept going.

 

He stopped in front of the scarecrow and considered for a moment how he'd take it; it was probably wet and muddy, and he hadn't thought to put on any gloves. The head bobbed closer eerily, and he finally reached, his hands grasping the thing's abdomen firmly.

 

He paused, his brow furrowing. The scarecrow felt too dense under his palms, too full, and it wasn't giving like old, rotten hay should have. Perhaps they'd stuffed something else into the shirt, he thought. He hesitantly started pulling up, and easily, the stick that was one of its legs came out of the wet earth below. There was a throb under his thumbs, and Mako almost let go.

 

He looked up to the scarecrow's face. From under the hay, shining beads stared back. The head tilted to the side again.

 

He threw the scarecrow over his shoulder, ignoring how heavy it seemed to be, how it shouldn't have been, and walked as fast as he could towards the barn. With the sound of rain, his muddy footsteps, his own huffing breaths, he couldn't be completely sure if he did hear the breathing behind him. When he reached the barn, he threw open the old door, and quickly settled the scarecrow against the nearest wall. It was too dark in there to see anything at all, so he didn't try to find eyes in the decayed face again, didn't let his hands linger on the too-strong hips. He shuffled his way out and slammed the door behind him.

 

Once he'd gotten rid of his dirty boots and his wet coveralls, he threw himself into bed, and fell asleep immediately.


	2. Lull

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I wouldn't update ever again? Me too. I wrote the second chapter ages ago but I hated it so I never posted. I guess you might as well have it? It's _something_.

The next morning, it seemed like Mako had dreamed all of this up, or at least had imagined everything weird that happened with the scarecrow. A look outside the window proved at least that he'd really gone out: the scarecrow was gone from the field, and he could see his own footsteps imprinted into the, now solid, dirt ground.

 

He ate eggs and apples for breakfast, and downed a tall glass of milk with mint syrup – his favorite. He'd first drank the simple mixture in France. His long criminal history had brought him all over the world, but France had been one of his favorite places. He didn't understand one word of the language, so he didn't get bothered about how people spoke to or about him, and he could just enjoy Paris as it was. The place he'd slept back then had been pretty shady, a ratty motel with a cliché disgusting back alley, but the city itself was beautiful. One of the men in the group that “employed” him, Gabriel, had taken him to a café and made him taste _lait menthe_. It was a pain getting mint syrup from the village, so he'd have to ride into town now and again to purchase as many bottles as he could manage to bring home. Worth it.

 

He got dressed, and then headed for the barn. A large part of it was just empty, dusty space, but he'd converted some of it into a comfortable room for his pig to live. Hog would run about the empty field and the dingy front lawn during day, but he was locked in at night, so Mako had to go let him out. He opened the door and was quickly welcomed by friendly grunting and a wet snout pressing against his leg. He gave Hog a gentle pat on the head, and the pig moved past him and started towards the field. Hog usually would sit under the scarecrow's shadow – Mako didn't know if this was normal behavior or not, but he didn't mind it – and seemed confused as he didn't find it today.

 

Right. Mako stepped towards the larger part of the barn. Since the storm was gone, he might as well put the scarecrow back out. He walked into the quiet, dark space, watching dust fly around in the ray of light provided by the open door. The scarecrow remained where he'd left it, up against the wall, the holes in the place of eyes empty as ever. Mako cautiously reached to touch it.

 

His hand found the scarecrow's intact arm, and again he felt the unsettling weight of it, the ungiving feeling of its solid firmness. The arm didn't crush under his probing fingers; the texture of it was smooth, even. And as Mako kept his hand there, he could again feel a dull throbbing.

 

Some sort of bug infestation, he realized. Something must've laid eggs in there long ago, and what he was touching was probably a full nest of bugs. He grimaced. He needed to make sure before throwing away the scarecrow.

 

He grabbed at the sleeve of the too-long flannel shirt and started pulling it up. It was wet and muddy, but with some tugging it went up.

 

In the sleeve, where shapeless hay around a stick should have been, he found a hand.

 

A corpse, he thought. Someone had disguised a corpse as a scarecrow, maybe long ago. Why didn't it smell rotten? Why wasn't it softer at the touch? The skin was a pale, sickly grey, with some kind of freckles – or maybe dirt – speckled over the top of it. The fingernails were nasty, dirt caked black under them. Mako wondered how long it could have been there. Obviously, it must have been around since before he arrived, but then how come it was in such good condition?

 

Mako had seen many corpses in his time. This wasn't particularly shocking to him. He unbuttoned the flannel shirt, finding a flat chest and a boney stomach underneath, and started pulling it off.

 

The rest of the corpse was equally as grey and freckly as the hand he'd uncovered. He threw the muddy shirt on the ground, and that's when he noticed it.

 

The corpse's chest was, slowly, moving up and down. It was a regular, quiet movement. Again, he thought that bugs must be in there; but the body had no other sign of being infested. There were no holes in the skin, no discoloration in the grey, and the pulsing was… Too regular. It wasn't an animal crawling.

 

It was clearly breathing.

 

Mako moved a hand to feel the body's chest. It continued to move under his palm, though maybe a bit faster.

 

Hit by a sudden inspiration, Mako looked up to the holes in the head. Sure enough, he could see two eyes looking back at him. He thought, dimly, that they must have been closed before, and now they'd opened. He stared uncomfortably for a moment. With the shirt now off, it was obvious that the hay that covered the head was not a continuation of the body, but merely a mask. He made an attempt to pull it off, but it wouldn't budge. Mako pinched a piece of hay sticking out and pulled it out. There was an immediate reaction. The scarecrow jumped back from his hand, and there was a muffle noise from its stitched mouth. Mako almost jumped back as well, but contained himself.

 

“Something living in there”, he muttered to no one in particular. Maybe to the scarecrow itself. There wasn't a response.

 

He grabbed at hay again and pulled out a handful of it. There was another, louder noise, and the scarecrow's head tilted away from him. Where the hay had been, he could see skin; it was grey and freckly as the rest of the body, though there was a dull red tint under it, as if the pulling had been painful.

 

Mako thought for a moment again, then grabbed the scarecrow over the waist like he had before and threw it over his shoulder.

 

He took it back to his house and cleared the kitchen table with a hand to lay it down there. He considered for a moment what to do, then laid one large hand over the scarecrow's chest to hold it in place and started pulling the hay off its face again. Slowly, features started appearing. A long nose first, and then, once he'd ripped out the stitches, a thin mouth. Wide ears, high cheekbones, and tuffs of hair that he'd never noticed in between the hay. He kept going until he could see no more hay at all.

 

The thing living in the scarecrow was a young man, in his twenties most likely, with a dirty, reddened face, bright yellow eyes and greyish skin. The expression on his face was clear: whatever this thing was, it was terrified. Mako sat down on his single kitchen chair.

 

“Can it talk?”, he wondered out loud again. No response. “Can you talk?”

 

“Sure I can”, said the thing in the scarecrow, looking quite annoyed now. “I was doing good and fine out there in me field like I've been for years, and now you gonna pick me outta the ground and pull my face off?”

 

“That wasn't a face”, he said. He was promptly ignored.

 

“That hurts, ya know? My whole face is burning now! What do you even want?”

 

Mako considered an answer for a moment.

 

“I want to know what the fuck a living boy is doing inside my scarecrow.”

 

The thing from the scarecrow stared for a moment, then gave him a grin.

 

“What, would ya have preferred it was a dead boy?”


End file.
